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 Post subject: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:31 am  (#1) 
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Earlier this year I started a topic about The Gimp Stigma.

As a result, I have been watching both Photoshop and Gimp communities to try to understand exactly why some people have such a bias for Photoshop over Gimp. I ended up with this conclusion:

Why Most People Think Photoshop is Better than Gimp (and why it's not true.)

What do you guys think? Do you agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts.


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:49 am  (#2) 
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From reading your article, you make avery good, and unbiased point. I have recently been surfing the net looking for PS tutorials in search of certain effects to make my work more realistic and also increase my knowledge base. Juat to be fair, from what I have seen, it appears that PS has one advantage over Gimp that I hope will be added in future builds.

Several tutorials indicate that you can appy several "effects" at the same time and not only that, you can "copy" those effects from one layer to another layer. This can be very advantageous particularly if you need to keep layers separate for future operations and don't want to merge the layers.

Secondly PS has several filters or textures that some of us have tried to immulate and cannot such as in one of the threads I posted. What is a layer "style" anyway? I'm not trying to bash Gimp at all, I LOVE Gimp! I would just like to see a litle more versatility with layers and some of the same filters so we can get the same effects. I know it can be done and there may be a way to do some of it now that I'm not aware of. Maybe some will be included in the 2.8 version. Hopefully someone will enlighten me here.

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:54 am  (#3) 
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Draconian wrote:
From reading your article, you make avery good, and unbiased point. I have recently been surfing the net looking for PS tutorials in search of certain effects to make my work more realistic and also increase my knowledge base. Juat to be fair, from what I have seen, it appears that PS has one advantage over Gimp that I hope will be added in future builds.

Several tutorials indicate that you can appy several "effects" at the same time and not only that, you can "copy" those effects from one layer to another layer. This can be very advantageous particularly if you need to keep layers separate for future operations and don't want to merge the layers.

Secondly PS has several filters or textures that some of us have tried to immulate and cannot such as in one of the threads I posted. What is a layer "style" anyway? I'm not trying to bash Gimp at all, I LOVE Gimp! I would just like to see a litle more versatility with layers and some of the same filters so we can get the same effects. I know it can be done and there may be a way to do some of it now that I'm not aware of. Maybe some will be included in the 2.8 version. Hopefully someone will enlighten me here.


For the record, I am an ex Photoshop user converted to Gimp. There are 3 things that I sincerely miss about Photoshop

1.) how it handles text
2.) layer styles
3.) adjustment layers

The layer styles dialog is a collection of different effects (outer glow, inner glow, drop shadow etc) that you can apply to a layer as a changeable feature. For example:

In gimp, if I wanted to add a drop shadow to text, I would duplicate the text layer, move the lower layer a bit, change it's color to black, set the layer mode to overlay and adjust the opacity to fit. I may even add a Gaussian blur.

In photoshop I would right-click on the text layer, and click "add layer style." in this menu there is a checkbox that says "drop shadow." I can check that box, adjust the distance, opacity, and blur dynamically. I can also remove it, and change it at any time.


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:16 am  (#4) 
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If i understand you correctly, layer styles I see on Deviantart are collections of effects?

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:24 am  (#5) 
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I'm a sometimes passive user of Photoshop. I do think some of the style effects are cool, but I've seen more then enough ways to get similar results in GIMP that I don't think that should be an issue for superiority. Since I'm a gonzo editor (i.e., don't give a hoot about self documenting editing {folks call this lossless editing, but I despise that term}) I really don't care about adjustment layers since to me the end result is all that matters. GEGL promises this anyway, so GIMP will eventually get adjustment layers in it's arsenal, but even in PS I gonzo edit. lol

The things that I really like about PS over GIMP is the previews are better, Liquify is far superior then iWarp, 16/32 bit editing (not necessary; just wish GIMP had it for those special occasions) and related to high bit editing, ACR (my real reason I keep Photoshop around. ACR is so much superior then any of the open source RAW handlers that I keep maintaining my upgrades with PS because of this sole reason; however, I don't plan on upgrading PS anymore since they changed their policy which really irks me by the way). All and all, I have little (other then handling my RAW files from my Leica and I am not a photog so that is, believe it or not, rare for me to do) use of PS. GIMP's my crutch; otherwise, you wouldn't have seen me here. lol

As a side note, most of the time, all you need is 8-bit editing. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:25 am  (#6) 
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Draconian wrote:
If i understand you correctly, layer styles I see on Deviantart are collections of effects?


they're dynamic effects - that's the key. You can change them at any time while editing your photo.


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:27 am  (#7) 
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lylejk wrote:
As a side note, most of the time, all you need is 8-bit editing. :)


Quoted from Adam Alexander on G+:

"By default, its "RGB Color" colorspace handles the same range of colors as the "millions of colors" that you see every other program use... That is 8 bits per color, plus an optional additional 8 bits for an alpha channel (transparency). This is 24 or 32 bit color, depending on how you handle the alpha channel.

That's vastly different from 8 bit color, which leaves 2 bits per color if you have alpha, or it allows for a pallet of 256 different colors... 2 bits per color wasn't even useful in the CGA graphics days, which is why GIFs use pallets.

Unless you have a monitor with a contrast ratio higher than 1:10,000, you will not be able to see any difference between 32 bit color and 64 bit color. If you're actually in advertising, you should know that your ad will not be seen on a top-of-the-line monitor. If it gets printed out in a magazine, then 6 bits per color is more than enough, if it's printed on a banner, then you might as well save the file in GIF format and be happy with your 256 color pallet. If the media is going to stay digital, then you'll never have it seen in good enough condition to see the very very subtle differences between 32 and 64 bit color anyways... If it's being projected (such as at a rock concert, or as an ad before a movie), there's no chance of the color depth being preserved due to the screen itself. Even if it's projected onto an IMAX screen, you'll never get the 1:10,000 contrast ratio you need in order for it to make a difference.

Even if the media stays on computer screens, the media does no good if it stays on your own computer... Sure your client might have a good screen... but who else does? Gamers do. That's it. Advertisers and gamers have good monitors, and the rest of us are more than happy to not give a ****. You know who among gamers or advertisers are actually going to see your ad? None of them. Both groups are computer savvy enough to be banner blind, and gamers all install Adblock.

So, it's nice for advertisers to pat themselves on the back... but is $700+ really a good investment for something that you, and only you, will ever see, much less actually notice?"


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:44 am  (#8) 
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I agree with your assessment, but preventing aliasing and also poster effect elimination is notably better when you edit in 16-bit. Still, many ways around both in 8-bit. Again, my main motivation to keeping PS around is RAW file handling (i.e., ACR). Now I gotta run. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:46 am  (#9) 
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lylejk wrote:
I agree with your assessment, but preventing aliasing and also poster effect elimination is notably better when you edit in 16-bit. Still, many ways around both in 8-bit. Again, my main motivation to keeping PS around is RAW file handling (i.e., ACR). Now I gotta run. :)


Agreed, but I do want to stress I was quoting someone else lol. Frankly I don't know much about the difference between 8 and 16 bit. Call it nearsighted, but I haven't seen a need to mess with it (yet.)


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:04 am  (#10) 
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I had recently tried PS and couldn't get on with, I used it out of curiosity and it looked very complicated to used. The tutorials are more or less as the same as Gimp anyway, The advantage with Gimp it's an open source and well PS is not and it's too expensive to buy. The stuff I use gimp for is the same as PS, so why bother getting PS while you can get an open source like Gimp. I'm very happy with Gimp it's easy to get on with. But I would like to see more on digital art tuts with Gimp. :D


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:48 am  (#11) 
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PS is probably better than GIMP in some aspects. PS is probably better than any other. But that does not mean that GIMP is a piece of junk. That is the mistake, thinking that way: PS better than GIMP, then GIMP sucks. A tool not need be "the best" to be an excellent tool.
Another thing that PS users do not understand is that GIMP is not PS. They want taht GIMP be handled as PS, making tools similar to what they already know how to use in PS. They want GIMP becomes something identical to PS, but free. GIMP is GIMP.
I hope you understand what I mean, with my poor English.

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:01 pm  (#12) 
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I do understand exactly what you mean Yafu.


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:37 pm  (#13) 
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They according to me this are two different matters:
1. Habits of using with different programmes.
2. Possibility of development of programme and the own needs (but I am careful so, that the great future before GIMP is ...)
And Yet matter Third - the acquaintance of language. Not every has to know English ..

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:49 pm  (#14) 
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About the 8 vs 16-bit debate... 8-bit limitations do show very quickly as soon as serious computation is involved. Bump-maps are a good example of this. However, I tend to agree with the Gimp developers, the solution isn't 16-bit integer but floating point, which, on modern hardware, is about as fast (SSE instructions, etc...).

Something where Gimp is clearly at a disadvantage is the press coverage. In the amateur photographer's press, there is always a Photoshop editing section. I've yet to see one on Gimp. Part of the problem is that Gimp is a toolbox that everybody has to enhance (for free) to make it fully usable. Hence now one has really the same Gimp and it's difficult to make an article that will be usable by most.

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:15 pm  (#15) 
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ofnuts wrote:
Part of the problem is that Gimp is a toolbox that everybody has to enhance (for free) to make it fully usable.

Funny you bring that up Ofnuts...someone just said the same thing on Google+ (That wasn't you, was it?)

I sort-of believe that this is a FOSS issue in general. The mentality is always light, and non-bloated when the majority of people (outside of the close FOSS community) actually want all of that extra stuff on their computers. I really think that gimp would do well to have some sort of way to connect to the plugin registry and install right from the program itself. (Not sure if that's even possible, but I think it would be nice.) I think if you gave people that "app store" like feel to Gimp plugins, they would be much more comfortable with it.


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:28 pm  (#16) 
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tstandiford wrote:
I really think that gimp would do well to have some sort of way to connect to the plugin registry and install right from the program itself. (Not sure if that's even possible, but I think it would be nice.) I think if you gave people that "app store" like feel to Gimp plugins, they would be much more comfortable with it.


Doesn't GMIC have a way to do that?
I use calibre, it has a neat plugin update module. If Gimp had a similar way that would be handy.

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:37 pm  (#17) 
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YAFU wrote:
PS is probably better than GIMP in some aspects. PS is probably better than any other. But that does not mean that GIMP is a piece of junk. That is the mistake, thinking that way: PS better than GIMP, then GIMP sucks. A tool not need be "the best" to be an excellent tool.
Another thing that PS users do not understand is that GIMP is not PS. They want taht GIMP be handled as PS, making tools similar to what they already know how to use in PS. They want GIMP becomes something identical to PS, but free. GIMP is GIMP.
I hope you understand what I mean, with my poor English.

I get what you mean people just have to make a dichotomy out of everything, it has to be this or that, i'm right your wrong, i'm first your last, mine is better then yours why does it need to be? but it doesn't have to be like that, why can both be good in its own way.

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:50 pm  (#18) 
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Odinbc wrote:
tstandiford wrote:
I really think that gimp would do well to have some sort of way to connect to the plugin registry and install right from the program itself. (Not sure if that's even possible, but I think it would be nice.) I think if you gave people that "app store" like feel to Gimp plugins, they would be much more comfortable with it.


Doesn't GMIC have a way to do that?
I use calibre, it has a neat plugin update module. If Gimp had a similar way that would be handy.


It probably does, but doesn't the idea of having to install an installer kind of defeat the purpose? lol


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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:32 pm  (#19) 
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There is one other thing that PS is easier then GIMP and that is Action creation. Actions are more created in a macro process whereas Script-fu requires coding and I'm not a coder (nor do I really want to me) which keeps me from really learning Script-fu. I will add that I never created an action either, but from the discussions on other forums that I frequent, it is not hard to do. Maybe a macro editor plugin that can generate Script-fu will be in the near future (again, I asketh for too much; lol). :)

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 Post subject: Re: Why Most People Incorrectly Assume Photoshop is Better than Gimp
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:03 pm  (#20) 
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Lol...well it's this kind of discussion that I think will create improvements for gimp for the "rest of us" as the non-linux comminuted frequently says.


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